MovieChat Forums > Here Come the Brides (1968) Discussion > 'Two Women' episode

'Two Women' episode

posted 12 years ago by MadTom
6 replies | jump to latest

Just saw the series' last episode "Two Women", which guest starred Jane Wyatt and Lynda Day (later Lynda Day George). This episode (briefly) reunited Jane Wyatt and Mark Lenard, who had previously played Spock's parents on the Star Trek series and would later appear in the same roles in various Star Trek movies, albeit they only appeared together in one scene in this episode.

Jane Wyatt plays Emma Peak, a woman returning to Seattle after over 40 years in San Francisco, with Lynda Day as her niece. We soon learn that she was in love with the Bolt brothers' father, who left her to return to Scotland and marry the boys' mother. As the episode unfolds, we learn that her motive for returning was to ruin the brothers financially and break them up, using her niece to do the latter by creating a romantic triangle with Jason and Joshua. As her obsession deepens and becomes more delusionary, she ends up trying to shoot and kill Jason Bolt, believing him to be his father. Jason disarms her by playing along with the delusion, and her niece takes her back to San Francisco a broken and presumably still mentally disturbed woman.

Am I the only one who wonders why the Bolt brothers didn't just try to fix Emma up with their Uncle Duncan (whom we met a couple of episodes earlier), who was their father's identical twin, and was unattached and traveling around the West at the time?

[–] bjlevine 12 years ago

Well, the "logical" solution was to fix her up with Aaron.

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[–] nihilistwonder 12 years ago

I wanted to know if Emma

was responsible for burning down her family's home after being disappointed by Jonathan Bolt. The character probably had the seeds of insanity all along. Also if one or both of Aaron's parents were supposed to be among the people who teased Emma about being jilted by JB, since he, too, was marked for ruin if her plans had succeeded. Plus, the story is set in the 1870s and the main street is portrayed as still just a cluster of small buildings around a big mud puddle... Yet 40+ years earlier, Seattle supposedly boasted a Tara-type mansion and a "Gone With the Wind" southern-style society?

Nice gothic atmosphere to the episode, would have been neat if it had been a two-parter.

"Shake me up, Judy!"

[–] bfan 12 years ago

I loved this episode. In my opinion, it's the best of the entire series. And it's also just an overall great hour of television. As the previous poster noted, it presents a wonderful gothic atmosphere, especially when Jane Wyatt becomes lost in her memories -- standing at her window as echoes from the past blow in on the wind, and when she runs through the hills one night. Another scene I loved is when Joshua first sees Valarie, when she is walking down the stairs, and they intercut between them -- showing her as we hear Joshua's thoughts, and Joshua as we hear Valarie's thoughts. Wonderfully filmed scene. Veteran director E.W. Swackhamer deserved an Emmy for it.

[–] MadTom 12 years ago

It's a good episode if taken in isolation, but there were a lot of continuity breaks with other episodes, especially Bolt of Kilmaren which was only three episodes earlier.

In Bolt of Kilmaren, it is established that the Bolt brothers' Uncle Duncan (Denver Pyle) is their deceased father's identical twin. Candy makes reference to a photo of the brothers' father and that the man in the photo just got off the stagecoach. In Two Women, there's no reference to the photo and instead a never-before-seen painting of the father appears on the wall of the Bolt home, a portrait obviously based on Robert Brown and bearing no resemblance to Denver Pyle. (I just posted that as a Continuity goof on the main series page; Robert Brown and Denver Pyle do look like they could be related, but they don't have that much of a resemblance.)

Furthermore (although I didn't submit this as a goof), in Two Women, there is mention of the Bolts' father Jonathan returning to Seattle with his bride after being in Scotland for two years; in Bolt of Kilmaren, there is mention of Jeremy having memories of Scotland and the family estate from when he was a toddler. While that's not technically a goof, I had the distinct impression that the Bolt family had neither the time nor the money to be traveling back and forth between Seattle and Scotland back in the mid-19th Century (before either the trancontinental railroad or the Panama Canal).

[–] susanemccool 10 years ago

Don't recall the episode, MadTom, but I would have been wondering the same thing. Also wanted to mention that as I read your post I was thinking of Jane *Wyman*. I always confuse the two - and know you've got the right Jane - but the latter better fits the part of a bitter, scheming, vindictive woman, in my mind, at least - à la Falcon Crest - vs the sweet Margaret Anderson!

[–] thetaylors604 9 years ago

Considering that Emma turned out to be insane, fixing her up with Duncan or anyone would be a very bad idea.

I liked this episode (last one of season 2) better than any others. Spooky, creepy, and Jane Wyatt did a great job.